CHAP. II.] RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 151 



rience was only likely to mislead ; for, in Eng 

 land, we leave the roots standing in the ground 

 all the winter, where we feed them off with 

 sheep, which scoop them out to the very bot 

 tom ; or we pull them as we want them, and 

 bring them in to give to fatting oxen, to cows, 

 or hogs. I had a great opinion of the hardiness 

 of the Ruta Baga, and was resolved to try it 

 here, and 1 did try it upon too large a scale. 



106. I began with the piece, the first men 

 tioned in paragraph 46 : a part of them were 

 taken up on the 13th of December, after we 

 had had some pretty hard frosts. The manner 

 of doing the work was this. We took up the 

 turnips merely by pulling them. . The greens 

 had been cut off and given to cattle before. It 

 required a spade however, just to loosen them 

 along the ridges, into which their tap-roots had 

 descended very deeply. We dug holes at con 

 venient distances, of a square form, and about 

 a foot deep. We put into each hole about 

 fifty bushels of turnips, piling them up above 

 the level of the surface of the land, in a sort 

 of pyramidical form. When the heap was made, 

 we scattered over it about a truss of rye-straw, 

 and threw earth over the whole to a thickness 

 of about a foot, taking care to point the cover 

 ing at top, in order to keep out wet. 



107. Thus was a small part of the piece put 

 up. The 14th of December was a Sunday, a 



